Wednesday, November 07, 2007

LA Story

I arrived in LA last night. As the plane circled the city to land, the ash-smog enveloping the area was still pretty obvious. I'm noticing the air quality's pretty bad, even to my London-battered lungs. This morning we went out for proper American breakfast before Alexis went off to class. I pottered around the area she lives in (and found a bookstore to snoop at the new Debbie Stoller). I had two cardigans on, and was pretty amused that it was much colder in LA than it had been in DC.

It was still pretty smoggy, but I went to the local park and sat and knitted for a bit. Then I popped on the metro downtown to MoCA. After finding the gallery (it took a while, seeing as I was on foot rather than LA-usual car) I discovered it was shut on Wednesdays. Darn it. I walked about a bit, visited the public library, and mused that it was a lot warmer now; all sunny and "proper LA". At that point I realised I was only wearing the one cardigan.

Double darn it. I'd left the thicker one in the park in Los Feliz. It was the drops jacket I'd whipped up before leaving for the US. Seeing as it was so warm in DC, I'd hardly worn it. I hadn't taken any picture of it yet - I thought I'd get Alexis to take pictures of me wearing it in some American setting. I went back to the park, hoping that maybe, just maybe it'd still be hanging where I'd left it. Of course, it wasn't. Darn, darn, darn.

Walking dejectedly back down the steps to town, I spotted it! Splayed in a tree, where I gues someone threw/ hung it. You might just be able to make out the Hollywood sign in the background.

By this point the smog had cleared a bit and there was a lovely, fresh breeze. I picked the branches out of the jacket and played around taking photos of the view and walked around Los Feliz a bit more. I bought some amazing tacos and generally enjoyed noting how very different the place is from DC.

That's what we do here--if we find clothing left behind we hang it on a tree, bush, or fence so that it's highly visible to anybody running back or driving by. I live near a grade school--there's always little jackets or scarves arranged over the juniper!